Three Course Meals

Rating: Null/10 (5 January 2008)

I expect I will stick with Danny Boyle no matter what, because "Sunshine" has changed me. I like what he does, circumnavigating zones of cinematic expression. He does it in the jumps from project to project, seemingly exploring both the depth at the center of each lake and its bounds.
But he does it within each project as well, working the overlay among what we seem to need to keep straight as separate genres. I'm not sure I really understand much about the necessity of genres. Surely they are a narrative necessity: a film only lasts a short while and you have to insert yourself into it quickly, filling in all sorts of context along the way based on established assumptions. But there's also the familiarity of stories that goes beyond film, indeed beyond all art and forms the basis of action in life. Art merely acknowledges these stories and is allowed to play with them a bit. Not too much, mind you, which is why combining and overlaying stories is so effective.
And that's what Boyle seems to understand so well. Its more than just being capable cinematically. He seems to find cinematic means in the overlap of these genre inspired strokes. In this case, its literally three genre-strokes in three acts. It isn't life-changing, but it is a bit exciting seeing how he can shift us from thrill to adventure to revenge to romance without too many bumps. Well, maybe that last one was a bit rough.
But he takes chances. And he enlists his actors in them, so there is an overlap as well among himself, his actors and their characters.
There was only one annoying thing here. When a character knows he is being stalked, and the stalker passes quickly in front of the camera so we know he is there but the character does not, there's this swoosh that first appeared in slasher films and is just lazy.
(The shopping scene references "They Might Be Giants.")
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.